But, Is the minimum duration of the Ministry which results from St. John's Gospel also the maximum ? Is it to be assumed that if the notes of time in 2"-6' can be co-ordinated into a sin^'le year, and those of C^-ll" into a second, no further latitude is possible? This is the crucial question.
A negative answer is implied in Irenaeos, tbe earliest in time, the most trustworthy in position, of all extant patristic authorities (Ilxr. II. xxii. 3-6). The limitation of the Ministry by the Valentinians to a single year he disproves at once from the record of three visits to Jerus. for the passover (see on Jn 6* above) ; but he finds also three other considerations which prove that the total length of the Ministry was far in excess, not only of one, ,but even of two or three years' duration, (i.) A priori: The Lord came to save and sanctify every age, whether of infants, children, boys, youths, or men, and to be at once the perfect example and the perfect ma.ster and teacher of all ; their example, by passing himself through each of the stages of huiuim life ; their teacher, by attain- ing the age of teaching.* (ii.) Scriptural: St. Jonn records (8") tliat the Jews asserted that Jesus could not have seen Abraham, because he was still under fifty years old — a phrase implying that he was not far otf fifty, at any rate over forty, since to a man between thirty and forty the retort would have been, 'Thou art not yet forty years old.' (iii.) Traditional: The elders who gathered round St. John during his long old age in Asia, disciples some of them, of other apostles as well, have all handed this down as the apostolic teaching. Of these arguments the first two do not come to much ; but the third does establish a primA facie claim, only to be rebutted by the overwhelming evidence on the other side. Is there, then, no method of explaining, or at least minimizing, this at first sight conclusive appeal to Johannine tradition ? In a later passage ( v. xxxiii. 3) Irenajus makes a similar appeal to ' the elders who had seen John, the disciple of the Lord,' and embodies their witness to the Lord's teaching about the Millennial times in a passage which he then defines as the written testimony of ' Pa])ias, the hearer of John and companion of Polycarp ' ; and since Papias' work was primarily a commentary on sayings or oracles of the Lord., it is a legitimate conjecture that if the earlier passage contains a particular exegesisof the text Jn 8", accompanied by emphasis on the authority of the elders, there, too, the authority and tiie exegesis are those of Papias, and probably of Papias only. But Papias had no title beyond that of antiquity to the exaggerated deference which Irena-us pays him. A writer so 'feeble-minded' (the phrase is from Eusebius) * I.t. 40 yaan ; see above on Lk S^, p. 40&*.
would have been just the one to press home to its narrowest meaning the d fortiori argument, ' Thou art not yet fifty years old,' of the Jewish contro- versialists ; it is even conceivable that he attributed the ' forty and six years ' of the literal temple to the human temple of our Lord.
But because a theory which extends the length of the Ministry to ten or fifteen years is on all grounds untenable, it does not at once follow that an addition of one year, or even two, to the minimum implied by tne recorded passovers would be equally out of court. At the same time, the cumiilative etlect of the four following considera- tions seems decisive against even this amount of deviation from the stricter interpretation of St. John's narrative.
a. However widely patristic writers differ from one another in their estimate of the number of passovers mentioned, they all, save Irenajus (i.e. I'apiasT) only, ajjree in believing that the enumeration, wiiatever it is, is exhaustive. Origeu in his earlier writings appears to have reckoned no more than the two pass- overs : consequently the Ministry lasted only 'a year and some months' (de PrincipiU, iv. 6). If Eusebius and the Paschal Chronicler find four Passovers in the text, they allot to the .Ministr.v a period of between three years and four. If Jerome, Epiphanius, and Apollinaris speak of three Passo\ers, they also deline tbe length of the Ministry as two years, or two years and so many days. In itself too much weight must not be attached to this coiuen^us, since the natural tendency of cbronologers is to make the most of what they find in their authorities, and to build up conclusions even where tbe data are slight and insutlicient. In this case, however, the Fathers appear to be doing do violence to tbe intentions of the evangelist.
0. t'oT if St. John wrote with earlier forms of the Goiipel tradition in bis mind or before liis eyes, and made it one of nis objects to supplement their deficiencies lay restatement of neglected facta, — as with regard to the Judeean Ministry or tbe day of tbe Crucifixion, — it is reasonable to suppose that the numerous notes of time which mark off bis narrative into stages are purposely introduced in definite contrast to the looser Synoptic account ; and he could only remove the erroneous impression wliich had perhaps been deduced already from other Gospels as to tbe length of tbe Ministry, by substituting in bis own Gospel an exact or fairly exact chronology. The proof that St. John mentions so many passovers, and so many only, amounts, then, to a presumptive proof that there wers no more to mention.